The dragon scroll, I.J. Parker, (overdrive ebook)

On his first official assignment, Sugawara Akitada--an impoverished nobleman and earnest young government clerk in the Ministry of Justice--is sent from the capital city on a nearly impossible mission to the distant province of Kazusa to discover why tax convoys are disappearing. In the politically murky world of the Japanese court, he has been set up to fail. Against the odds, the ever-resourceful Akitada, his elderly servant Seimei, and his impudent bodyguard Tora are determined to fulfill their mission and discover the truth in a town of dangerous secrets

On his first official assignment, Sugawara Akitada--an impoverished nobleman and earnest young government clerk in the Ministry of Justice--is sent from the capital city on a nearly impossible mission to the distant province of Kazusa to discover why tax convoys are disappearing. In the politically murky world of the Japanese court, he has been set up to fail. Against the odds, the ever-resourceful Akitada, his elderly servant Seimei, and his impudent bodyguard Tora are determined to fulfill their mission and discover the truth in a town of dangerous secrets

An impoverished young aristocrat and lowly government clerk in the Ministry of Justice, Sugawara Akitada is sent on a perilous mission to the distant province of Kazusa to investigate the disappearances of a series of tax convoys, in a mystery set against the backdrop of eleventh-century Japan. Original